Leaders are the main heroes of an organisation’s success. They push employees to succeed, boost employee morale and increase revenue and productivity. Here are six skills of exceptional leaders.
- Excellent Communicator. Exceptional Leaders are those who can take the vision they have and communicate it in ways that their workers can readily concede, own and internal. Then, and only then, they can deliver. Focus on talking and formulating more clearly and with the passion that you have for the idea you have. Use different ways of communicating, including several ways, verbally and non-verbally. Above all, communicate often!
- “Eyes” the End Result Long Before Others. The highest compliment on the leadership skills I ever endured came from a friend who told me that “you see kinds of stuff about six months before the rest of us.” Without tooting my own horn, that is a leader’s skill. They are forever looking out ahead of themselves and their circumstances. Followers are concerned about what happens today, while leaders are thinking about what they see for tomorrow. Get good at “recognizing” the future. When you can do this in better ways, they will look to you for guidance!
- Capacity to define goals for others and self. Do you know what your goals are? Can you identify them? Can you verbalize them? Can you do this for your followers? Can you determine and set their goals? An exceptional Leader works at accuracy and clarity of goals to be internalized and practiced upon by others. Work hard at this art, and others will follow!
- Ability to establish policy and an action-oriented approach. What will you do to attain your dreams? Many individuals can say where we should go, but it is an exceptional Leader who can layout a map for everyone to get there! Work at designing a plan for you and your workers. Remember that there are individuals with different passion and skill levels, and take this into account! Master this, and when individuals want to get to their goals in a hurry, they will call on you to manage and lead!
- Capacity to motivate others. You may have a grand goal, but if you want to be an exceptional leader, you will have to put a little oomph into your workers! This is the gift to inspire! Work at encouraging them to understand the big picture, the high-end results, and how good it will be for them and others. Above all, make it appealing. If it is a decent goal, it should be interesting. If it isn’t appealing, then dump it and get a goal that others can get excited about!
- Delegates. An exceptional Leader is seldom a person who is doing everything alone. Outstanding Leaders get their job done through others. They figure out the way, talk the way, and inspire them to go that way, and then they get out of the way. Delegate to your people. Win them! Set them free to soar! This is what an exceptional leader does. Leaders who do it any other way are just exhausted at the end of the day with very little to show for it!
